


Ghosts in the Glass

by Querel (Rednaelo)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Insanity, Internal Monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 03:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/426491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rednaelo/pseuds/Querel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, a girl died.  When she woke up, she was alone.  And she always would be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts in the Glass

I don’t fear the ghosts. Not the shadows that crawl along my floorboards and between the haggard spaces of my mind. I am unafraid: no corner can conceal what will bring about the end of me.  They may seek my trembling heart but they will not find it.  There is no doubt here.  There is no wretched end to meet.

I have a familiar peace in solitude and I have passed the point where I realize all company I might keep is a comfort.  Who delights in illusion? Not I.  I crave the moments where I awaken and remember.  Yes, oh yes, I am only as alone as I wish to be.  And I am utterly crowded.

There has been no patient companion to wait for me; I have no other to touch.  I have a dark room and a storm that will never end, the empty glow of a computer screen and a window where the ghosts look in and they watch me.  Watch the fabric rip and the plastic crack and the sound of my laughter.  Oh, it’s a beautiful thing….

I don’t have time.  It’s a stupid quantity to measure because all of time is mine forever and it always has been since I’ve been here with memories to collect like stupid blue pieces whispering false fortunes to my one eye.

‘Try again later.’

Later….  What ‘later’? I don’t have ‘later,’ I only have now.  And it’s always right now when the ghosts look in.  I pace my room and laugh and the ghosts look in.  What a funny world it is where the ghosts keep company of a thing like me, a ghost in some string of reality.

What does that make me?  The one who has been here for a time that doesn’t exist and extends forever? How many sweeps have gone by?  What do I remember?  What have I learned and how have I grown in this perpetual static? What becomes of this me?  Who remembers Vriska Serket?

Not I.

But somewhere in the hollow sockets of children I’ve killed, where they watch at the window—even in my own death!—there must be a fragment, a stutter of a bloodless heart when I’m in here in the dark and storm and I peel away from everything.

I’ll pace the floor and pull off every layer that covers me until there’s nothing left to pull away except my own skin.  Of course, I don’t bleed.  If I do, it’s a trick: a good laugh.  And I always laugh when I see their white faces in the window as I face them back.  My legs spread, my mouth wide as I ‘hahahahahahahaha!’ and think of them watching.

What is beyond your souls?  What great ever-after must you have reached to wind up here, outside my window while I stay…stay…stay.  Stay the same forever with my laughter and no fear but the one recollection that it was all my own.  I have everything.  I wound my fingers through opponents and allies, not one person’s legacy escaped my touch.  I am the orchestrator: the great builder and destroyer.  All is mine.

Still mine.

Even here, in this one room with the rain and lightning and not a single way to look outside.

Nothing is here except this one mirror I tend to forget about.  Its angled pieces of broken glass and a faint blue glow that smells like the wind….

I fool myself well.  The glow isn’t blue, just blank from the screen of my computer where time doesn’t pass.

And so I never speak.  Unless to hear myself laugh at the ghost in the mirror.

I do not fear her for she has nothing.


End file.
